Breaking Away from the “Ideal Female Body”
The rise of social media has meant a lot of different things for our society. We can get our news almost immediately through a variety of different channels, we can stay constantly connected with those both close and far away, and we can come together as a community to share ideas, thoughts, opinions, etc. However, for a woman, the rise of social media also means constantly being exposed to the “ideal female body,” and constantly being told how we should look, act, and even eat.
As a 22 -year-old woman, I feel like I’ve spent the majority of my life being told by someone what I should look like and how I should act. I’ve been taught that women are pretty things people enjoy looking at; that we should dress nicely, do our hair, and always have a smile on our face. As we grow up, you’d think that we wouldn’t be so easily persuaded by any of this, however, I’ve learned that this is not the case at all and that my weight and my overall physical attractiveness are still seen as some of my more important qualities.
What ‘the ideal female body’ is doing is keeping women occupied so that we are less focused on achieving equality and political advancement.
Before even getting into where we are now, I want to start by looking at where we have come from. In her 1991 bestselling book, “The Beauty Myth”, Naomi Wolf describes beauty ideals as unattainable standards shaped by society. She wrote that focusing on beauty is a distraction from what is really important such as achieving equality and political advancement.
Commodity feminism signifies the difference between feminism and femininity. A feminist controls her own life, has personal freedom, and rejects being defined by her looks. Femininity is how attractive a woman seems to a man. Women were used as pawns to sell their looks and their sexual appeal to make money. For example, Skyy Vodka uses the sexual appeal of women’s specific body parts in their ads.
In 2018 came popular feminism as opposed to commodity feminism. Sarah Banet-Weiser (2018) discusses this in her piece, Empowered. Popular feminism included an increase in hate, toward both men and especially feminists. It’s reinforced by the logic of visibility, or everything being visible, composed of likes, clicks, hashtags, etc., and the economies of visibility.
Advertisers and companies use feminism as a toll to sell goods, which is not feminism at all. And it’s our responsibility as women to recognize this. Every time the word, “feminism”, is used for some small way to make a buck, it loses a small piece of its meaning and we, as women, lose a small part of our fight toward equality.
So, how does all of this relate to food and health?
Well, just as advertisers use the principles of popular and commodity feminism to sell their goods and services, celebrities and social media influencers use their “ideal” body to sell their brand. If you look through your Instagram feed today, it’s probably full of “fitness trainers” and “nutrition experts,” trying to sell their programs to vulnerable women. We know deep down that they probably have very little, if any, knowledge in this particular field. Yet we are still turning to them for information on what we should look like and how to get there. Why? How do these influencers and celebrities have so much power over us and how do we fall victim to them? Well, it’s rather simple.
Currently, in our society, the ideal female body is thin, with an “athletic build,” meaning some small muscles, a smaller waist, and a bigger, toned butt. When women on Instagram post pictures of themselves looking like this model with step-by-step instructions on how “they did it,” women are more likely to fall victim to it. This program could be anything: fitness, health, nutrition…you name it, but as far as it being healthy in the long-run, probably not so.
Ladies, imagine you’ve been dying to shed that extra 10 pounds (which is probably part of your natural body shape and size, but we won’t get into that). You see a young, petite woman on Instagram with an awesome body. The caption says, “I’m here for you, I want to help you feel and be the best version of yourself, follow the link and subscribe to my program. Let’s do this together.”
The program is $9.99 a month and it’s all on your phone, tablet, computer, etc. It includes everyday workout regimes, recipe booklets, nutrition guides, it’ll even tell you exactly what you should be eating every day. Sounds great, right? Who wouldn’t want to do this?
Here’s the issue. That program is not going to work the way you want it to. These influencers don’t know enough about you, your body, or honestly, health, in general, to be able to tell you how you should be acting and eating. So, you try the program. Maybe you lose 2 pounds to start, so you continue to pay.
A couple of months later, you are still following this woman on Instagram and you feel part of a community. She’s posting, engaging with you, you feel you can relate to her. Yet, one day you sit back and think about the progress you’ve made. Maybe you’ve made some but you have no energy because of the diet. She told you she’s a vegetarian, so you became a vegetarian, yet you were lacking so much protein that your body couldn’t possibly hold onto muscle or give you any energy. Or, she told you to do the Keto diet just like her because that’s how she lost weight.
You saw great improvements during the first few weeks but realized soon that your body is not meant to be Keto long-term because you’re lacking so many vital nutrients, so you stop and gain all the weight back. Maybe your body is exhausted from working in high-impact ways that it shouldn’t be.
We’ve hurt our bodies more than we’ve helped them. All because we trusted a woman with a smartphone and a nice body.
Do you see my point here? We are putting complete trust into people on a social media platform, so much so that we are listening to them tell us what we should be putting into our bodies and how we should be living our lives. Did you know that most celebrities and influencers even get paid to promote certain products, workouts, and even diets? They most likely don’t even use that skinny shake or tea that they’re telling you to buy. They just got paid to post a picture of it with a nice caption.
Why am I talking to mostly women and not men? Well, first, women are most vulnerable to falling victim to this because we are told what we should look like. We are shown what we should look like almost all of the time. We have constant pressure to conform to these body standards, and when it’s as easy as downloading an app and putting in a credit card number, we feel the need to say yes. It’s like we have this duty to society to always look good and be in perfect shape.
We’ve all heard someone say, “Oh, poor thing, she’s gained a lot of weight.” Or, just think about when a woman’s had a baby, what’s one of the first things she hears? “Time to lose the baby weight.” Not like she has a million other things to do, including taking care of a newborn child, but she should focus her time and energy on losing weight.
Second, #thinspiration and #fitspiration flooded Instagram and other platforms a few years ago encouraging women to be skinny. Photos of women with eating disorders and extremely low body weight were posted and captioned #thinspiration.
When it was revealed that women were also succumbing to eating disorders and other unhealthy ways to lose weight, the hashtag got banned and #fitspiration took its place.
However, #fitspiration was ideologically the same concept, except the woman in the picture was in a sports bra and had some abs or biceps, but still extremely thin. These influencers on Instagram could be seen as the new #fitspiration, and when women don’t see the results they were promised, they also run the risk of developing eating disorders or over-exercising.
My goal of this post is not to shame us as women or make us say “Ok, so now what do I do?” My goal is to point out how we are putting way too much trust into people on social media to tell us how to be healthy. Everyone’s bodies are different and everyone’s bodies are beautiful, which is why we each should find a health plan that works for our unique needs!
What I’ve learned and have to continue to remind myself every day is to forget the beauty myth and ignore the fake and unattainable standard that society tries to say you should accomplish.
Our bodies are special because they’re ours. They’ve been through a lot, so remember to be kind to them. So, stick to what you know. Eat fruits and vegetables, exercise, and most importantly, do what makes YOU happy. Because, in the end, health and happiness are all that matters.
Khala Hurd is a recent 2020 graduate from Cornell University where she majored in Communication. Most of her research experience includes social media, fitspiration, and other fitness and health related research, and media studies. Khala recently joined Dirt to Dinner and strives to teach women to love their bodies no matter what size and shape they are because the best version of us is when we are confident in our own skin.
